Glen Cove in the NY Times

In case you missed it, Glen Cove and Garvies Point were featured in the NY Times Real Estate section. A member of our sales team, Debra Quinn Petkanas was interviewed for the piece along with Garvies Point buyer Lorraine Wendt.

The story was printed on October 1, 2017. Excerpts below:

Lorraine Wendt, loved her five-bedroom house. But as a widow, she wanted to downsize, though she couldn’t decide whether she preferred to be on the water or in a town.

In Glen Cove, a seven-square-mile, ethnically and economically diverse city on the North Shore of Nassau County, she found both.

“It’s city, but country, and it’s on the water,” said Ms. Wendt, “This is the most perfect, idyllic situation I could be in.”

A mixed-use development on a cleaned-up Superfund site, where infrastructure and foundation work is underway, Garvies Point will have 569 condominiums, 541 rental apartments, a 1.1-mile waterfront esplanade, an amphitheater, three marinas, shops, a restaurant and cafe with outdoor dining, a dog park and more than 27 acres of open space and public parks. And next year, a completed ferry terminal will offer commuter service to Manhattan.

Across a small bridge in the downtown, RXR Realty is tearing down abandoned buildings to make way for Village Square, another development with 146 apartments above shops and restaurants on a piazza.

“Glen Cove lost its character as a destination location, and now this will bring it back,” said Reginald Spinello, the city’s mayor, who since taking office four years ago has worked to get long-stalled projects approved, and to change the face of this city of about 27,000 residents. “We have a waterfront 20 years in the making, and now we have 56 acres of remediated waterfront property on the North Shore of Long Island that is back on the tax rolls after 30 years.”

The Glen Cove that Mr. Spinello, 65, grew up in was “a very vibrant place — our downtown was the center,” he said. But “as years went by, nobody wanted to shop in the downtown or went to the malls. Now, everybody wants a downtown.”

He added, “Glen Cove is transitioning to what it was: At one time, it was one of the gems of the Gold Coast.”

What You’ll Find

Glen Cove has “an urban-suburban feel,” said Debra Quinn Petkanas, an associate broker with Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty and another lifelong resident. “It’s very much a city environment, or you can escape to Pryibil Beach or eat at the View Grill at the golf course, and you could be anywhere, Nantucket or on the East End of Long Island.”

Dormered capes, ranches and colonials on quarter- to half-acre lots dot sometimes hilly streets. The lush estates area — north of Forest Avenue and along Dosoris Lane and Crescent Beach Road — has “the same feel as when all the wealthy people came here at the turn of the century, the Pratts, the Whitneys, the Morgans and Woolworths,” Ms. Petkanas said. “Most of their mansions remain in Glen Cove but have different uses” — as a YMCA, the Glen Cove Mansion hotel and conference center and the Webb Institute, an engineering college. At Welwyn Preserve, a 204-acre Nassau County park, a Pratt mansion is now home to the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center. Killenworth, another Pratt mansion, is a Russian diplomatic retreat.

What You’ll Pay

Pre-construction prices at Garvies Point’s Beacon condominium complex begin at $575,000 for a one-bedroom, one-bath unit and go up to $2,375,000 for a three-bedroom, three-bath penthouse with a roof terrace.